globetrotter
Stylish Dinosaur
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
- Messages
- 20,341
- Reaction score
- 423
A few pieces of good news, I wanted to update those of you who have expressed interest.
First, my wife just ended the first trimester - she is carrying what appear to be healthy twins, due in the fall. We have been holding off telling anyone, as we had a miscarriage last year, and we wanted to get through the first trimester. We are very happy, as is my 4 year old. My wife has been having pretty hellish morning sickness, and that, compounded with her going to work, has not been easy on the household.
Secondly, I closed an agreement on a new job. This is, by far, the best job I have ever looked at, and a perfect fit for what I was looking for. I will be heading up the international sales department for a medium sized, 80 year old manufacturing company based in the Greater Chicago Area. This is a company that rules its domestic market, and now wants to expand into the international market, and is willing to put effort into it, and needs somebody to manage the effort, from soup to nuts. There is definite potential to take this company from being a purely American company to being the global leader in their field, and this is what I have been preparing for pretty much my whole career. From a challenge perspective, this is perfect for me - it offers a great deal of challenges, but without the risks and the weaknesses of doing the same thing for a start up.
The package puts me back on track with where I was, before I moved to the States, but with a substantially lower tax burden.
My family is very excited about living in the Chicago area, as this was one of the places that I was thinking about, when we first started to think about coming to the States. The culture, diversity, sports teams, natural environment are all very attractive. I think that we will not lack in anything that we have now, being part of the greater NYC metro, but that many things will be even more accessible and affordable.
The past few years have been pretty hard for me - I basically decided 4 years ago to move my family to the States. For about 2 years, I tried to get my employer at the time, a large multinational, to move me, with no success. I was a candidate for recruitment by a different multinational corporation, based in Michigan, and was convinced that that would work out, and that didn't. it was, at that point, the first time I had interviewed for a job and not been offered the job, so I was pretty devastated (I see now that that was naive).
I took a job with a small, poorly managed company, in a position that was about 3 steps down, in order to move my family to the states, with the hope that it would work out all right and I would be able to improve the company enough that it would be a fun and rewarding job. I also took a more than 50% cut in overall package, with the incorrect belief that I could trust my boss to work things out once I stated bringing in results. The 18 months I stayed with that company were devastating to my career and my confidence. My boss, who was the nephew of the chairman and had been put in place solely due to that, worked very hard at attacking my spirit and my confidence. He was very insecure, and missed no opportunity to humiliate me and put obstacles in my path. As I had spent my life savings in moving my family to the states, and I had moved my family into a place that I was having trouble affording, I had to shut up and take it. As an example - when I started working he told me not to wear a suit to work, because he wore suits, and it would confuse people as to my status with the company. Or, when I sent out an email thinking a woman who reported to him for some work she had done for me, and cc'd a half dozen people, he replied to everyone and reprimanded me, saying that he was the one who should have thanked her, and I was incorrectly using the email system. Although my family was very happy to be living in the States, the period of time I was with this company was the worst in my life, career wise - for the first time in 17 years of work, I hated my boss and didn't enjoy my work. In addition, because there was not the anticipated restructuring of my compensation plan, and I was living in an expensive part of the world, for the first time since I was a teenager, I was poor. I had never been in a situation before (as an adult) where I needed to watch my money so carefully, or be so concerned about my finances.
Last summer, some of you may remember, I quit my job and joined a start up, in the hopes that this would give me a way to get back on track. Although I was thrilled to be working again in a relatively good situation, from the first month the company had trouble paying me, and was not able to carry out any of the marketing activities that we had discussed, during recruitment. I would get paid 2 weeks late, or get my expenses returned (often 2 months salary worth) as much as 2 months late. After a few months, this company simply collapsed, owing me money, even though I had been assured that the company had money in the bank to survive the time needed to develop the market.
For the past almost two months, I have been unemployed, working at finding a new position and worrying about the mouths I have to feed, as well as the 2 new members of the family coming in the fall. This has been an extremely difficult period for me. I have been working and contributing to my support since I was 14, and was raised in a way that equates work and performance with personal value and character. Being unemployed has not been easy on me, emotionally. My wife, who was raised with maids and drivers, and used to be a university lecturer and a museum curator, went to work as a waitress after not working outside of the house for several years. I did some gardening and handy work for my landlord, for which he deducted money from our rent. Small things became large problems - our car died, and we needed to buy a new one, for instance.
I went on several interviews - I had excellent responses to my resumes: I found that when I applied for a job in my field, international sales, on monster, hotjobs, or careerbuilder, I had about 50% chance of a phone interview and 25% chance for a face to face interview. I had 6 interviews over a 2 month period, mostly for jobs that I wasn't thrilled about, that I was slightly over qualified for, but that I would be very happy to do. I didn't receive offers for the jobs, and this was devastating. I was starting to seriously consider that this whole move had been a mistake, and that I might have to find a way to drag my family back to Israel in defeat, or to totally change the way we lived - maybe move someplace cheap and work a few lower paying jobs just to survive.
Then, the best possible job came up. After less than 3 weeks of discussions, it closed. This puts me back on track, and puts me back in a position to provide for my growing family in the way that I had hoped, and to put in an order for a few ties, something that I haven't allowed myself in more than 2 years.
Several people had offered me a great deal of emotional support during this time - Tom, Matt, DR, JA, Jill and Chuck, Hunt and several others, and I would like to thank you for it.
First, my wife just ended the first trimester - she is carrying what appear to be healthy twins, due in the fall. We have been holding off telling anyone, as we had a miscarriage last year, and we wanted to get through the first trimester. We are very happy, as is my 4 year old. My wife has been having pretty hellish morning sickness, and that, compounded with her going to work, has not been easy on the household.
Secondly, I closed an agreement on a new job. This is, by far, the best job I have ever looked at, and a perfect fit for what I was looking for. I will be heading up the international sales department for a medium sized, 80 year old manufacturing company based in the Greater Chicago Area. This is a company that rules its domestic market, and now wants to expand into the international market, and is willing to put effort into it, and needs somebody to manage the effort, from soup to nuts. There is definite potential to take this company from being a purely American company to being the global leader in their field, and this is what I have been preparing for pretty much my whole career. From a challenge perspective, this is perfect for me - it offers a great deal of challenges, but without the risks and the weaknesses of doing the same thing for a start up.
The package puts me back on track with where I was, before I moved to the States, but with a substantially lower tax burden.
My family is very excited about living in the Chicago area, as this was one of the places that I was thinking about, when we first started to think about coming to the States. The culture, diversity, sports teams, natural environment are all very attractive. I think that we will not lack in anything that we have now, being part of the greater NYC metro, but that many things will be even more accessible and affordable.
The past few years have been pretty hard for me - I basically decided 4 years ago to move my family to the States. For about 2 years, I tried to get my employer at the time, a large multinational, to move me, with no success. I was a candidate for recruitment by a different multinational corporation, based in Michigan, and was convinced that that would work out, and that didn't. it was, at that point, the first time I had interviewed for a job and not been offered the job, so I was pretty devastated (I see now that that was naive).
I took a job with a small, poorly managed company, in a position that was about 3 steps down, in order to move my family to the states, with the hope that it would work out all right and I would be able to improve the company enough that it would be a fun and rewarding job. I also took a more than 50% cut in overall package, with the incorrect belief that I could trust my boss to work things out once I stated bringing in results. The 18 months I stayed with that company were devastating to my career and my confidence. My boss, who was the nephew of the chairman and had been put in place solely due to that, worked very hard at attacking my spirit and my confidence. He was very insecure, and missed no opportunity to humiliate me and put obstacles in my path. As I had spent my life savings in moving my family to the states, and I had moved my family into a place that I was having trouble affording, I had to shut up and take it. As an example - when I started working he told me not to wear a suit to work, because he wore suits, and it would confuse people as to my status with the company. Or, when I sent out an email thinking a woman who reported to him for some work she had done for me, and cc'd a half dozen people, he replied to everyone and reprimanded me, saying that he was the one who should have thanked her, and I was incorrectly using the email system. Although my family was very happy to be living in the States, the period of time I was with this company was the worst in my life, career wise - for the first time in 17 years of work, I hated my boss and didn't enjoy my work. In addition, because there was not the anticipated restructuring of my compensation plan, and I was living in an expensive part of the world, for the first time since I was a teenager, I was poor. I had never been in a situation before (as an adult) where I needed to watch my money so carefully, or be so concerned about my finances.
Last summer, some of you may remember, I quit my job and joined a start up, in the hopes that this would give me a way to get back on track. Although I was thrilled to be working again in a relatively good situation, from the first month the company had trouble paying me, and was not able to carry out any of the marketing activities that we had discussed, during recruitment. I would get paid 2 weeks late, or get my expenses returned (often 2 months salary worth) as much as 2 months late. After a few months, this company simply collapsed, owing me money, even though I had been assured that the company had money in the bank to survive the time needed to develop the market.
For the past almost two months, I have been unemployed, working at finding a new position and worrying about the mouths I have to feed, as well as the 2 new members of the family coming in the fall. This has been an extremely difficult period for me. I have been working and contributing to my support since I was 14, and was raised in a way that equates work and performance with personal value and character. Being unemployed has not been easy on me, emotionally. My wife, who was raised with maids and drivers, and used to be a university lecturer and a museum curator, went to work as a waitress after not working outside of the house for several years. I did some gardening and handy work for my landlord, for which he deducted money from our rent. Small things became large problems - our car died, and we needed to buy a new one, for instance.
I went on several interviews - I had excellent responses to my resumes: I found that when I applied for a job in my field, international sales, on monster, hotjobs, or careerbuilder, I had about 50% chance of a phone interview and 25% chance for a face to face interview. I had 6 interviews over a 2 month period, mostly for jobs that I wasn't thrilled about, that I was slightly over qualified for, but that I would be very happy to do. I didn't receive offers for the jobs, and this was devastating. I was starting to seriously consider that this whole move had been a mistake, and that I might have to find a way to drag my family back to Israel in defeat, or to totally change the way we lived - maybe move someplace cheap and work a few lower paying jobs just to survive.
Then, the best possible job came up. After less than 3 weeks of discussions, it closed. This puts me back on track, and puts me back in a position to provide for my growing family in the way that I had hoped, and to put in an order for a few ties, something that I haven't allowed myself in more than 2 years.
Several people had offered me a great deal of emotional support during this time - Tom, Matt, DR, JA, Jill and Chuck, Hunt and several others, and I would like to thank you for it.
